1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print managing system and a print managing method for managing print data sent from client apparatuses to a printing apparatus through a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Up to now, a printing system, in which print data is sent from a plurality of client apparatuses through a network, the print data is received and processed by a printing apparatus or a print server apparatus adaptable to the network and the received and processed print data is printed out by the printing apparatus, is put to practical use.
In such a printing system, a print spool function is disposed on a Printing apparatus or a print server apparatus, in many cases. The print spool function is a function of sorting the print data from each client apparatus into a management unit referred to as a print job, and then managing the allowance or rejection of the output of each print job, a print order and the like, and sequentially outputting each print job to a print output section in order to print out.
Further, information of the print jobs managed by the print spool function are displayed as a list by each client apparatus, the printing apparatus or the print sever apparatus, and a user can order to change the printing order, cancel or stop the printing operation, etc. by viewing the displayed list of the information of the print jobs.
Namely, identification information of the client apparatus by which the print data corresponding to each print job is outputted, identification information called a print job name and information of a data capacity to be printed out, a reception time of a print job or the like are displayed as the information of each print job. The user can select the desired print job by viewing these information, and give his or her orders to the client apparatus.
However, there may be a case that only a vague name is given to a print job name in the conventional printing system, depending on an application software by which the print data is outputted and the like. Moreover, there may be a case that the client apparatus corresponding to each print job cannot be identified depending on a used communication protocol.
Thus, there may be a case that it is difficult to determine which jobs correspond to what kind of print data.
Then, a method which can display a content of the print data as an image in a client apparatus, a network printing apparatus before printing is proposed and disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid Open (KOKAI) No. 62-291263, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open (KOKAI) No. 6-110626, Japanese Patent Application Laid Open (KOKAI) No. 7-40608 or the like.
According to such a method, it is possible to confirm a content of the print data. However, in such a method, it is difficult to confirm the plural print jobs simultaneously, so that the user cannot easily select a desired print job from the plural print jobs managed by the print spool function. In order to enable easy selection of the desired print job from the plural print jobs managed by the print spoor function, a list of the print jobs is required.
Further, if the image is indiscriminately displayed, there may be the risk of other people viewing the print data that is not desired to be viewed. This results in a problem of a security.